Perhaps – since the ballot was ruled illegal despite being fairly clear cut and well organised – it is time for the TUC to draw up standardised balloting practices that unambiguously fall within the law.

As it happens I think BA is a dying company as a result of strike action. But that strike action reflects awful management of the company as much as it does militancy by the staff.

Managers get the unions they deserve.

Did the union comply with the rules or not?

What a ridiculously weak liberal viewpoint in #1 above.

The BA as a company must, according to the rules of the market, generate profits by being a successful company. A company which does not attribute a reasonable share of those profits to its workers (directly through salaries and indirectly through working conditions) is not a successful company. It’s nothing about BA ‘getting the unions they deserve’ it’s about a perfectly reasonable ballot for industrial action by unionised workers.

Maybe Mr Justice McCombe will be asked to rule on the validity of the last general election, which saw thousands of voters turned away from the polling stations. The only consistent verdict he could reach would surely bring down the Con Dem coalition.

Did our elections comply with the rules or not?

‘Real industrial activists are men who do manly jobs. The stereotypical cabin crew worker is female or gay (but not both), and does a customer service job, so they can’t be real activists.’

Dave, your misogyny is showing.

(BTW, I’ve never been called ‘sir’, by an airline hostess or anyone else.)

Hear, hear.

5 Totally agree.

Dave, do you really believe that class has got anything to do with whether you wear stilletoes or steel-capped boots, if the answer is ‘yes’, you’ve been nu-laboured.
And you really must catch up on your knowledge of Orgreave, – it was the police who charged and created the violence, I suppose you think that they woudn’t do that to attractive young women with blonde highlights, LOL.
Scargill’s message in the 1980s is still as relevant today only you have to see through the images, obviously you are unable to, but you’re not alone, that’s why we now have the government from hell, and an opposition left wondering why so many people deserted it.

@3

Despite your anger you seem to agree with me. Which begs the question as to where the anger came from.

I say the TUC draws up clear standardised balloting systems and then staff could vote for strike action without courts being used to overrule a clear mandate.

Has anyone done the Flying Picket joke yet?

stevb

I think you have missed the sarcastic aside intended by the article.

I also think you have a slightly odd perception of NuLabour if you think Blair’s message was one of traditional stereotypical working class appeal. Blair wanted the working class re-defiened to include office workers and, I suppose by default, cabin crew.

It was that appeal to the wealthier worker that made so many traditional lefties hate him in the 90s.

#2 I’d say yes to that question. The judgement is that the union did comply with the rules, but didn’t go far enough in applying them. The 11 spoilt ballot papers were apparently not given enough prominence when publicising the results, despite drawing attention to them on noticeboards and in leaflets. To anyone but a die-hard Thatcherite, I would’ve thought the unions actions should be deemed a perfectly reasonable application of the law.

#4 I’d say no to that question, but the discrepancies were not great enough to change the overall result.

@10

Um, no. Blair wanted to redefine everyone in Britain as “middle-class”. If you were at the very bottom then you were “on the margins of society” and if you were at the very top you were a “wealth creator”.

Agree with article. To those asking: yep Unite played by the rules, 11 (out of 11,000) ballots were spoilt and Unite (apparently) didn’t tell a few members about that. Due to Blighty’s disgusting anti-trade union laws [one of Labour's many shames that they didn't overturn them] that makes the whole strike illegal (despite 80% voting in favour on an 80% turnout: hell of a lot more democratic than the government, frankly).

Organising a ballot of this size is very difficult because the law makes it so. The very illiberal judgement seems to interpret the law in a new way, because past strikes would have failed under the same criteria: Unions are supposed to inform members of the outcome of a ballot. The judgement seems to be based on an argument, no doubt put forward by BA’s union-busting lawyers, that this means the full breakdown has to be sent to each eligible member rather than just the outcome. (Previously such details should have been available on request).

We should bear in mind that these ballots are conducted independantly by the Electoral Reform Society and they will have advised Unite about how to conduct its side of the ballot. No doubt Thompsons solicitors will have advised too, given the previous legal ruling.

Yet again we see how New Labour failure (to repeal anti-union laws) is being used in an illiberal way against a legitimate protest. I now have no doubt that BA intend to break its unions in order to de-unionise its workforce. I have talked to flight staff in other airlines about this and sadly they have little sympathy with the BA staff as they see them as privileged already.

10
Sorry I disagree, @12 has got it right.
My evidence – Clause 4,
Traditional lefties saw through Blair,
I didn’t miss the conscious sarcasm it was the unconsious assumptions I picked-up on (now I’m getting all Freudian), Blair became Thatcher in a suit and so many people initially fell for the ‘middle-class’ crap.

Mr S.Pill

In that case I’ll take that back and agree he was redefining us (now former) steel toe-cap workers as middle class too. After all he famously claimed that Labour’s core support was the whole working population.

My point was, however, that his aim was hardly to encourage a divide between steel-toe-cap and stilltoe wearers (I’ve worn those too in my time, but that’s a different kind of confession) and those who wear suits to their underpaid understaffed jobs.

steve

sorry – I credited you with too little awareness by thinking you’d missed the sarcasm.

I fear though that I also credited you with too much insight into Nu-Labour, or perhaps you just don’t know much about the Thatcher years. But surely you see that although labelling Blair as Thatcher is an nice way to let off steam about his government not going as far as we all wanted, it is a little absurd when his premiership saw the creation of a minimum wage, an expansion of public services, a rise in apprenticeships, and the granting of new trade union rights.

I’ll overlook the clause four issue though – it was a redundant clause, and labour nationalised more stuff in the ten years after ditching it than in the ten years before doing so.

If only they were – Scargill may not be perfect, but he’s still a hero. Anyway, the management of British Airways are truly a reprehensible bunch and this court decision is a complete joke.

16
Sorry, wrong again, I know quite a lot about the Thatcher years, and as for the ‘redundent clause four’ (you’ve clearly been nu-laboured), it was a process towards socialism, it represented the only real symbol that Labour was left.
Clause 4 also represented the pro-active acquisition of the means of production not the reactive acquitition of financial systems brought about by nu-lab’s flirtation with Thatcherite dogma.
And the minimum wage – despite this, thousands of families have to be propped-up financially, allowing businesses to cheapen labour while the rest of us subsidize it, so much for the granting of new trade union rights.
But I suppose I’m just an old-fashioned trade union member, a la Scargille, what do you latte-drinking Islingites call us, ah yes, tribalists. It wasn’t Gordon Brown who lost the election, it was silly, arrogant twats who told us how well nu-lab had done when the gap between rich and poor widened more than under Thatcher and the increase in public services meant more men in suits.

The judgement is now online.

A startling number of psychics contribute to LC threads.

A reasonable judgement. Unite can’t ignore statutory rules just because they’re the good guys. Their legal team surely had a duty to point this out to Unite bosses, and deserve a kicking for letting so many strikers down.

But the High Court yesterday did not see things like that, and overturned the democratic decision of thousands of Bassa members at the behest of a solitary judge.

Damn that pesky rule of law eh?

FFS, this is not exactly an impossibly complicated piece of legislation:

“As soon as is reasonably practicable after the holding of the ballot, the trade union shall take such steps as are reasonably necessary to ensure that all persons entitled to vote in the ballot are informed of the number of (a) votes cast in the ballot; (b) individuals answering yes to the question, or as the case may be, to each question; (c) individuals answering no to the question or as the case may be, to each question; and (d) spoiled voting papers.”

Not too hard that. Who the hell is advising UNITE on its procedures?

But the High Court yesterday did not see things like that, and overturned the democratic decision of thousands of Bassa members at the behest of a solitary judge.

Damn that pesky rule of law eh?

FFS, this is not exactly an impossibly complicated piece of legislation:

“As soon as is reasonably practicable after the holding of the ballot, the trade union shall take such steps as are reasonably necessary to ensure that all persons entitled to vote in the ballot are informed of the number of (a) votes cast in the ballot; (b) individuals answering yes to the question, or as the case may be, to each question; (c) individuals answering no to the question or as the case may be, to each question; and (d) spoiled voting papers.”

Not too hard that. Who the hell is advising UNITE on its procedures?

I say, I say, I say. Sorry about the double posting…

Dave Osler

I agree it’s hard to imagine cabin crew as Scargillite militants, but what other explanation can you offer for why a group of workers in an already financially troubled company would choose to strike in the middle of a recession?

Surely the cabin crew realize that their skills are pretty easily acquired and that they themselves are readily replaceable? Surely they recognize that almost every company in the private sector – and now the whole public sector – is trying to squeeze costs out?

To go out on strike over a couple of rota changes and a few travel perks is surely crazy?

5 Agree with you. Thought I would let it go and just put it under my ‘silly boyz/lacking imagination’ category of sexist posts ( and maybe homophobic) but…

Of course the defense is that it was ‘ironic’ For me that doesn’t stand up

1. It is lazy sexism to immediately reach into well established memes of gender stereotypes that trivialise women’s work and trade union activity.

2. One of the ‘struggles’ about air stewards has been precisely the ‘sexualisation’ of their role: the need to wear dangerous clothing (stillettos and pencil skirts), the age and beauty restirctions that reinforce this conflation of “service” with images of availability. Perhaps those Virgin Ads have had too powerful an effect.

These are not puritanical points about ‘stilletyos and pencil skirts’ being a bad thing for women to wear because of some ‘signal’ they sent out – which I emphatically would reject. Rather, it is precisely what I say: you have used it to ‘trivialise’ women’s work and ignore actual trade union campaigns in this area of work.

As a good trade unionist, you should know that the majority of trade unionists are women doing all sorts of jobs.

steveb

it was a dead symbol – a worthless bunch of words that held Labour back in a nation that remained suspicious of communism. It dedicated Labour to an idealistic cause when what Labour needed to do was serve the working people of this country by getting its hands dirty and actually doing something for them like invest in better healthcare, education, policing and working opportunities.

I should say I was actually refering to network rail when I said about nationalisation – not the banks which has been a bizare situation in which the 1983 manifesto rose from the ashes to save capitalism. (Oh the irony)

My family has benefited from the NMW. Millions of families have. It isn’t a huge income. In London it is barely survivable. But it sure as hell beats doing security work for £1.50 an hour in 1996. So hey, why show solidarity with your fellow working man? Much more fun to rail against bosses and a system than actually do something to improve lives.

And as for the uniquely missplaced islington-ite latte attack. I can promise you as a proud Tottenham boy (all be it one who lives deep in West Ham territory in Plaistow) I wouldn’t be cought dead spending my days and nights in the dump that is Islington. I also don’t drink coffee as it happens.

Elaine

Not only are BA staff not required to wear stilleto heels, they are actually banned. Many staff wear flats. Those who choose to wear shoes with heels are required to change into flats or small heeled court shoes for take-off/landing.

Nor are they required to wear ‘pencil skirts’ or appear sexually available. And the gay staff don’t have to be twinks either.

maybe you’re stuck in the 1970s?

Flowerpower

You are right and that was the result of union action/health and safety. Glad you made the point.

Yes I know that that changed and that was the point of the Virgin refernce.

Sorry that my post didn’t make it clear (I am bad on tenses)

Dunno abour Scargellites but probably the prettiest picket line in the history of picket lines.

Am I the only person who has forgotten that BA suffered a loss before tax of £342m for the nine months to the end of December 2009. Therefore, cuts needed to be made.
If you don’t like it then go and work for a different airline…oh right, staff at other airlines earn on average around £15,000 less p.a. (Virgin).
So, your company is having to make cuts in a recession because it made losses…and you earn a hell of a lot more than your counterparts within the industry…remind me again why BA staff think they have a reasonable case?

“it was a dead symbol – a worthless bunch of words” why get rid of it then if it’s dead?

“that held Labour back in a nation that remained suspicious of communism” In 1995? With the Soviet Union gone?? Even the CPGB packed it in in 1991 FFS.

In 1997 I didn’t see many people saying “Huzzah! Now that Labour has got rid of clause 4 I can, at last, vote for them!”. About the only people that noticed it’s removal were the metropolitan media (who,of course, overwhelmingly welcomed it).

It’s many of the responses on here to a perfectly reasonable post that make we wonder about LC’s claim to be “the leading left blog” (even ignoring the right wing trolls) Truly, Thatcher’s Children are eveywhere. It’s like a pavlovian response to back the rich and powerful everytime.

All the discussion about the technicalities of the anti-trade unions laws, the most draconian in Europe, are, your honour, bollocks. The point is they are so complex and byzantine it is virtually impossible now to for a union to go on strike if the employer goes to the courts. As the late Alan Watkins used to write quoting Malcolm Muggeridge “grasp that and you grasp all”

It will be these trade unions that will be in the frontline defending the poor and lowest paid in the teeth of the cuts to come. I’ll log on to LC to read the posts condenming them

And congratulations Mr Osler on the post and your victory in the courts.

26
Without clause 4, Labour became another centrist party, indistinguishable from the Lib Dems, I know nu-labour saw themselves as such but in doing so it moved away from representing it’s core support. I have no problem with this, but it can’t carry-on pretending that it was somhow a modern version of old Labour, the result of the election was, in great part, due to many of Labour’s supporters eventually coming to realize this.
If you are happy voting for nu-labour, it is your democratic right, but for me, the welfare benefits and minimum wage are poor exchange for the real wages that unions were able to negotiate. Somehow this appears to be viewed as ancient, eg crypto-Scargillite eh? – Unite’s members are taking exactly the same action, as all unions do and have done,, and they don’t have to be told by nu-labour that because they wear suits they are still working-class that’s just plain arrogance.
What the OP reflects is the embarassment of past union conflicts by nu-labour, Scargille is always a good target, but take away the aesthetics and what you have is the same.
Along with the OP and @27, (I think he’s a tory), you are talking the same language. But isn’t it an irony that after dropping the ‘defunct’ clause 4, nu-labour did nationalize more stuff in the ten years after than in the ten years before (when they were in power)?

Now Gordon Brown has resigned, Willie Walsh must be the most disliked person in the UK!

This strike business is not cricket, Why on earth don’t Willie Walsh give his staff back their travelling perks and meet his staff somewhere in the middle.

What is very clear is that in the next few months there will be public sector cuts – deep cuts. These cuts cannot be made without the loss of many jobs. The public sector unions will not allow those job losses. So the biggest impediment to Osborne/Laws’ cuts are public sector strikes.

There are two options. First, the emergency budget will be an emergency in that it will announce a ban on public services strikes. With May cutting police budgets and with the troops out in some hell hole in central Asia, I am not sure that CameronClegg will be able to do that (but I still wouldn’t put it past him). The second option is to allow the existing law to do the work. And the Bassa strike action seems to be the testing ground. I don’t see it working. Eventually there will be a tipping point and people will say “to hell with the law”.

@17 Chris

“If only they were – Scargill may not be perfect, but he’s still a hero. Anyway, the management of British Airways are truly a reprehensible bunch and this court decision is a complete joke.”

So wrong… and yet so right, and both in the same post. Scargill may have been a hero to the NUM bitter enders and the far left, but in all other respects he was fairly disasterous for the Left, and the interests of working people in the UK. Like the loonies on the right, the loonies on the left are adept at claiming the reason they didn’t win is because they weren’t ideologically pure enough. It wasn’t right then, and it isn’t right now.

BA and Walsh are a reprehensible bunch tho, I’d agree. It’s a pity New Labour hadn’t addressed unti-Union legislation when it had the chance…

Captain Swing

Socialism in the Leninist sense actually lost what little appeal it held for most when the USSR collapsed. And Clause Four, though played up as a big big deal, was a represenation of the other changes taking place in the Labour Party. No one of those changes probably made much difference to individual voters, but clearly taken as a whole they did.

@32

Labour did become another centrist party deliberately. Because our electoral system and public outlook requires that of any party seeking to gain power and achieve anything for those it represents.

Labour were not, however, indistinguishable from the Lib Dems. Along with a lot of policy differences, Labour is a largely working class party (if we overlook the sadly cliche’d political classes that fill the benches of ever party now) And under Blair it reflected that somewhat better than under Brown (who focused more on managing poverty than measures to support working people, like union training reps, the union modernisation fund, the right to join a union, and so on)

I also think your analysis is weak about the election. Labour’s vote went up in heartland areas. In East london for example, several MPs saw swings their way even as turnouts rose. That does not suggest Labour’s problem was getting its core working class vote out.

And with respect, as much as you and I both seem to support the union movement, Labour did nothing for the unions under Kinnock and Foot. Nothing at all. Not a single thing. Because Labour were out of power. Blair did something. He didn’t go very far because that’s the price of power. But he did something at least.

–

I should also say – having been out during the election in East London, Liberal Conspiracy might struggle to square some of its views with working class politics.

For a start – the working class by and large didn’t seem to give a monkeys about poverty this election. Indeed large numbers at hustings and local door knocking sessions said that it was about time Labour got back to supporting people who work and struggle to raise their kids and pay their bills – and told those who don’t to stop scrounging.

@37

the working class by and large didn’t seem to give a monkeys about poverty this election. [They] said that it was about time Labour got back to supporting people who work and struggle to raise their kids and pay their bills

I think you may find that asking Labour to support people who struggle when working/raising kids/paying bills is “giving a monkeys” about poverty. Unless you assume that the glorious NMW is so high that anyone in full-time work is ipso facto not in poverty.

37
What was the point of your post, we are primarily talking about union action, and unions support workers not those who are out-of-work, unless you include the families of workers.
You don’t need to tell me about the election result, I live in the nu- labour heartlands and their vote diminished considerably even if they managed to hold on to the safe seats. In fact, they took Chesterfield from the Lib Dems, which was probably only due to Clegg putting his foot into it by making a positive reference to Thatcher’s treatment of the unions.
Can’t argue that Foot and Kinnock did nothing for the unions but without Clause 4, nu-labour is just another centrist party happily operating within a capitalist system, and, as another poster has mentioned, removing it didn’t really have much affect on the general population. But as I have already mentioned in another thread, May 2010 was the ideal time to argue that capitalism and state-intervention in markets do not work. Just as Thatcherism had it’s opportunity so had the left, but we’ve missed it.
Fighting for leftist ideas is hard and laborious, the elite are not just going to roll-over and let you change a system which serves their interests well. They’ll be quite happy to throw little sops at the work-force in the form of a NMW and they’re even happier to allow the rest of the tax-payers to subsidize wages in the form of tax credits. Unions traditionally fight for a fair, living wage.
Btw, referring to the OP, this year is the anniversary of the end of the miner’s strike, the commitment of the miners actually left all without an income for one year and collecting berries, wood and rubbish was the norm for many family. And re; your comment@26, I don’t think anyone thought it was fun.

I meant to say that this year is the 25th anniversary of the end of the miner’s strike.
35
Scargille was disasterous for working people? Didn’t you mean to say Thatcher?
It’s just a shame that the majority of the so-called looney lefties didn’t have as much resilience as Scargille and the miners. But I guess that those who now identify themselves as leftist think that the class-struggle means writing blogs in the comfort of their office/home. I really despair.

@38

I think your post is exactly what has gone wrong with Labour and the left as a whole of late.

If you split the households of the UK into quintiles – and compare the average income in each – you will find the middle quintile typically earns just over £20k a year before tax and benefits are considered. They earn just over £20k a year once benefits and tax are accounted for in the figure too – so no benefit to them.

Meanwhile the lowest quintile has a typical annual income of just under £5k a year before tax and benefits, and a typical income of over £14,000 after tax and benefits are accounted for.

£20k a year is a decent sum. It isn’t poverty. It isn’t deprevation. But it isn’t a particularly wealthy life. It generally means living in the same streets and estates as those who are in actual poverty, who don’t work, and who live off benefits. And it annoys them that while they work hard to pay their bills, others don’t.

Now Labour can be a party of concience and focus on managing a mere safety net for the worst off. Or it can be ambitious and try acting on the principles of solidarity with the working man.

Hence why I support policies like free school meals for all primary school children. You could argue it isn’t the state’s job to do that, and only the poor really need it. But my view is one of solidarity not concience. One less burden and an act of unity as working people, however small, can be a great support.

Focusing on poverty is managerial and shows a lack of ambition and understanding of the common man. So lets not do that any more.

@41

Am I to guess that you’re on £20K PA then?

I’m not disagreeing with your main point – that Labour should focus on all working people. But just because someone isn’t claiming benefits or whatever doesn’t mean they’re not in poverty, it’s just a question of semantics (and I suppose relative living costs – ie: £20K is a small fortune in NW England; and bugger all in London).
Yes more needs to be done to help people into work and then make the system fairer by focussing on the low-paid; but I don’t think you need to beat up the unemployed to do that. We lose more in tax evasion by the super-rich than in benefit fraud.

39

Having just read your disgusting patronising dismissal of the minimum wage as a little sop, I think I’ll just learn to ignore your posts from now on. I’m far too insulted and angry to judge the rest of the post right anyway so I best leave it alone.

@ 41 “20k a year is a decent sum. It isn’t poverty. It isn’t deprevation. But it isn’t a particularly wealthy life. It generally means living in the same streets and estates as those who are in actual poverty, who don’t work, and who live off benefits. And it annoys them that while they work hard to pay their bills, others don’t”.

Absolutely. The problem is that as long as poverty is measured “relatively” (meaning that if everyone has a plasma tv then “the poor” should have one too, and a car and a holiday) it will never be eradicated, and the benefits system will continue to reward the workshy. Genuine, absolute poverty (as in not enough money to eat, no home, no heat/light) was all but eradicated in the UK by the 1960s. Working people are right to be annoyed that they have the same standard of living as people who don’t work, and I think you will find substantial numbers of “poor” families are actually living a lifestle that would cost well in excess of median income (i.e £25k+) for a working family to acheive.

Mr S. Pill

The unemployed do need help. And Labour has hardly beaten them up in office. But help should be getting them into work and being honest that their prospects depend on themselves, not on others.

And most people in poverty are not in work. Most are unemployed one way or another. Which suggests that working, if you’ll pardon the pun, works.

Hence I have the view that to make the system fairer we don’t need to focus on the low paid – we need to focus on everyone. Free meals for the children of low paid or unemployed families is not as ambitious, and achieves less, and creates more resentment, than free school meals for all children.

Oh – and no – as of six month ago I now earn a bit over the average in the midle quintile. Not quite into the second quintile sadly, but who knows, loading lorries at the warehouses around Heathrow to put myself through uni may yet pay off.

Matt

Actually the problem with poverty is that it is measured only by cash. So that £100billion we spend on the NHS does absolutely nothing for those in poverty. Likewise the £80billion we spend on education.

Yet if we handed that money out af about £50 a week to every man woman and child, and shut down the NHS and state schools – poverty would be gone – but the poor would be far worse off as they wouldn’t be able to afford the standard of healthcare and education that presently doesn’t impact on poverty.

@44

Have you ever had to claim benefits? Do you know anyone who has? Any of your friends or family ever been long-term unemployed? Are you aware of how much JSA is currently set at? Do you know what sort of hoops you need to leap through to get HB and council tax benefit? Are you aware of the demoralising interviews that occur every two weeks? Do you know that even if you have a high level of skills if there is a minimum wage McJob you are expected to take it? Do you know anything about real life on benefits at all?

If not, then I suggest you refrain from making silly comments like families on benefits “are actually living a lifestyle that would cost well in excess of £25k”. It’s divisive bullshit like this that makes people harp on all the fucking time about benefit “scroungers” and the “workshy”, avoiding the tax-evading crooks that brought us recession and job-loss on a massive scale.

@ 40 stevie b

“Scargille was disasterous for working people? Didn’t you mean to say Thatcher?
It’s just a shame that the majority of the so-called looney lefties didn’t have as much resilience as Scargille and the miners.”

A plague on both their houses; my post and jaundiced view of the loonie left had nothing about approving of the mad old trout. I’ll happily dance on her grave, and demonstrate against the state funeral when it comes.

I’ve always found it odd how many of those enamoured of Scargill and the struggle think that all was lacking was “resilience”. What does it actually mean? The rhetoric of class struggle has hardly helped save vast swathes of British industry over the past quarter century: militant trades unionism has to take it’s share of the blame along with ideologically motivated Thatcherite wreckers.

It’s not about “resilience” at the barricades, or some doomed attempt to pretend that the Foot era “longest suicide note in history” only failed because it wasn’t left wing enough, or wasn’t presented in the right way. It failed becuase it didn’t have significant support.

Your evident disdain for those leftists you write off as blog writing barricade dodgers is what will make most on the left despair.

@45

Agreed there should be a more univeralist approach. Can’t see it happening any time soon though, I can hear the tabloid cries of “nanny state!” already.

43
Yes, best leave it alone because there isn’t really much you can say, and if you feel angry and insulted, you can imagine (can you?) just what thousands of ex-miners would feel about ‘having fun railing against the bosses and the system’ What the hell do you think socialism is? I really don’t think you know, but the clue is clause 4 and Labour were initially Fabian socialists, I’ll let you look that up yourself.
When you’re aware of the historical beginnings of Labour, you might better understand why so many of it’s core supporters hate nu-labour.

48
As I’ve said in several previous posts, It wasn’t the right time for the left, Thatcher took the opportunity and by fair or foul means was able to wipe-out large areas of industry and weaken the TUs Now the time has come when the net results of those policies are clear (thanks in part to nu-labour) who sold their soul to pander to the right, come the election, there was no strong leftist party to represent the masses.
And regrettably, what now seems to be considered as left just means taxation to redistribute to the masses in order to make capitalism seem okay.